10 Of The Most Unhinged Candies You Can Actually Buy

Whether you're a "little sweet treat" every day kind of person, a holiday-candy only type, or a closeted sweet tooth, you've probably got candy that you love and candy that you hate. Maybe you're a strictly fruity-and-gummy lover. Or perhaps you're more of a chocoholic. Or maybe you don't discriminate at all when it comes to sugary sweets and are more than ready to enjoy whatever tasty morsel comes your way. Well, you might want to be careful what you wish for, if these candies are any indication of what's available in the market.

While we're all for diversity, we suggest exercising a little bit of judgment when it comes to these wacky candies. From weird packaging to gross-out designs to just plain icky ingredients, these sweets are decidedly unhinged. While we can appreciate creativity when it comes to candy, especially in an era where so many chocolate bars just seem to be variations of caramel, peanut butter, and chocolate, we do have a limit. Spoiler alert: The limit is these candies listed below. If you like a little adventure served alongside your sugar, you might just consider expanding your horizons and testing out any of these crazy candies that you can actually buy. Just don't say we didn't warn you.

Have you ever had the insane desire to eat fresh roadkill? No? How about suck on a possum-flavored candy cane? If so, you're in luck, because this is an item you can actually buy. With their bright pink and pale grey stripes, these curved candies look innocuous enough, until you learn that the brand that produces them, Archie McPhee, trades in the weird when it comes to confectionery.

Advertising these candy canes as having a porky flavor, these treats (although that word is debatable here) are made with artificial possum flavoring. How they managed to achieve that flavor and who was the test subject, we hope to never know.

The company, for reasons that veer past novelty and into regular old "WTF" territory, also offers candy canes in such unappealing  or odd flavors like chicken soup, Pacific Northwest salmon, gravy, hot dog, mac and cheese, and Bigfoot (pine-flavored). Look, we like savory as much as the next person, but we draw the line at salmon (and possum) flavored candy. If you're really looking for something different to hang on your holiday tree, go ahead and give these a try.

Confession: We were once gifted these lollipops as a child by someone who thought they were weird, gross, and kind of cool. They were right about the first two, anyway. They were the one candy in my childhood I distinctly remember not tucking into, no matter how much colorful hard sugar was involved. Move over, Dum-Dums, there's a new lollipop in town! Well, okay, these have actually been around for more like 30 years.

Insects like ants, crickets, worms, and even tiny scorpions are encased in these sugary treats, daring customers to try them. The flavors of the lollipops themselves are familiar enough, coming in tasty varieties like banana, apple, blueberry, and strawberry, but, of course, at the heart of them is an insect. These bugs are edible, but they're not what we would want to have on hand to satisfy our sweet tooth. Even if crickets are a source of protein, we're still going to pass.

We can definitely see how this product would function as a gag gift, or maybe a fun surprise to give out on Halloween. But, beyond a few rare occasions, we definitely won't be adding these insect lollipops to our candy dish (although you can order from Amazon and try them if you're curious).

Inspired by the Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans from the "Harry Potter" series, jellybean titan Jelly Belly took it upon themselves to create Bean Boozled, a line of jelly beans that have completely normal flavors — think pear, banana, and marshmallow — alongside identical ones that taste, frankly, disgusting. But that's the point, of course.

Bean Boozled positions itself as a game for the most daring of tasters. Will it be a juicy peach jellybean you pop into your mouth, or will you instead be greeted by the flavor of barf? Yes, really. We don't know how the food scientists at Jelly Belly managed to do it, but they have created excellent approximations of the real deal (or as real as we can imagine; we ourselves have not eaten burnt rubber). These candies are seriously unhinged, but they're marketed that way. Fun and creative, you know what you're getting into from the get-go. So, if you've ever wondered what wet dogs, stink bugs, and old bandages taste like — or want to trick someone into trying them, instead — Bean Boozled is the way to go.

While the aforementioned Bean Boozled has jellybeans that taste like boogers (beware the juicy pear flavor), this novelty Box of Boogers is more about replicating the look and feel rather than the flavor. You have to be thankful for small miracles, right?

These squishy, sugar-dusted "boogers" are flavored with lemon and lime, which means that an entire box of them is pretty one-note. We can appreciate that candy as a whole is by and large marketed towards kids, and there's no doubt that the grade school set would get a kick out of these. We can picture them shoving the candy boogers up their real noses now. However, for the ones with the money to actually buy this box of novelty sweets? We don't get it. Beyond the initial shock factor, an entire box of just lemon and lime gummy candies strikes us as, well, kind of boring. Points are awarded for being gross, but after these initial "yuck," we feel this candy is a bit more "meh."

We've already seen worms (along with ants, crickets, and scorpions) in lollipops, but Earthwoormz strips things down a little. Consider these candy-coated worms almost like the acoustic version of those sugary lollipops, with the candy largely removed to make way for the star of the show. In fact, the same company, Hotlix, that makes those insect lollipops (along with plenty of other bug-filled treats) is the one behind these, too.

Real earthworms (not mealworms, unlike those found in the insect lollipops) are coated in a colorful, crunchy candy shell for a sweet that's more "trick" than "treat." If you're a texture fiend, perhaps this combo of crunchy and gooey will be right up your alley. Maybe the Box of Boogers should take note. For those who like to show off that they can handle eating anything, these novelty sweets might be a good idea. After all, the worms aren't very big and are fully encased in their candy shell. Think of it like nature's own Big Chewy Nerds (and maybe have a garbage can handy, just in case).

Let's take a slight detour from the candies filled with bugs and all manner of gross things and veer instead into a flavor profile that's more head-scratching than plain gross. You've probably heard of — and enjoyed — Swedish Fish, those red gummy candies that are so beloved they even have a Trader Joe's dupe (which is arguably better than the OG). However, these candy fish that actually are Swedish couldn't be further from that version.

Known as "spickesill," these hard blue fish candies don't taste like berries or fruit at all, even if their vibrant color might have you imagining blue raspberry. Instead, their flavor profile consists of salty licorice and menthol — two strong flavors we can't see working together. With their blue coloring and harsh flavor, we imagine that these little swimmers take more like medicine than confection. While salty licorice is common enough in popular European candies, the addition of menthol has us wondering why anyone would want to scoop up a sweet that tastes more like something you'd rub on your chest when battling a cold.

Chili and chocolate isn't a new flavor combination. If you're making Mexican hot chocolate, the spice is mixed along with cinnamon and allspice to create a robust, warming flavor profile that adds dimension to sweet, creamy chocolate. However, in the spirit of unhinged candies, the devious minds over at Flamethrower Candy decided to up the ante and create a chocolate bar that offers more than a pinch of the spicy stuff: The Flaming Anus Chocolate Bar is made with the Carolina Reaper pepper, boasting more than 2.2 million Scoville units. The Carolina Reaper pepper was previously named the hottest pepper in the world, only to be beaten out by the new Pepper X. The company also offers other spicy sweets, like Lil' Nitro, the world's hottest gummy bear, and the Toe of Satan, a chili-infused lollipop.

The flame-accented label warns customers that the chocolate bar, despite looking like a kid-friendly candy, is for adults only. It advises that it may cause skin and mouth irritation due to the hot pepper inside and cautions customers. No doubt, all of this makes the chocolate bar more intriguing to those who think they can handle the heat.

We're not sure who came up with the idea of selling candy cigarettes to children, but we'd like to have a word with them. While as of this writing, candy vapes don't seem to be a thing (although we say it's only a matter of time), candy cigarettes were a regular guest in Halloween bags and corner stores in decades gone by.

This writer remembers two types of candy cigarettes: ones that were sweet, white sticks that tasted sort of like stale marshmallows, and ones that were thin cylinders of chocolate wrapped in an edible paper. At least, we were told the paper was edible. They were the height of grade school cool, when you could feel chic and mysterious pretending to puff away while covertly nibbling this controversial sweet treat.

In terms of retro and vintage appeal, these nostalgic candies are winners. However, we have to wonder what it says about Big Candy that they thought making such an addictive habit seem innocent and child-friendly was a good thing. Even the FDA saw the truth in this, and candy cigarettes were banned in 2009, although they can still be found online.

Kids, being kids, have a juvenile sense of humor (as do some adults). That's why there's so much candy designed around grossing people out. There are numerous candies or candy vessels shaped like toilets, garbage cans, boogers, and more, and that's where these weird sweets come into play.

Modelled after the poop emoji, Pooplets are a small, cartoon poop-topped container filled with chalky, cola-flavored, poop-shaped candy. The connection between candy and fecal matter is a weird one we can only imagine the most immature minds came up with, but that's not even the most unhinged part of this candy's creation, although it makes a strong case.

One look at the Amazon comments for Pooplets shows a severe oversight on the part of the creators. Many commenters pointed out that the red-lipped poop mascot bears a striking resemblance to racist minstrel shows. While there are also blue and red Pooplets on the market which don't look like this distasteful caricature, the brown Pooplets still remain, as we can attest, having seen them in stores just last week.

Last but not least, we have a trifecta of treats. Fortunately, despite their name, these limited-time lollipops (they're only around for Halloween, according to the Melville Candy website) are not, in fact, flavored with blood, boogers, and barf. Like the Box of Boogers and Pooplets, it's more the name and the look that leaves us scratching our heads, but the flavors are as normal as you'd pick up in any old fashioned candy shop or convenience store. The Blood-Pop is cherry-flavored and speckled with some kind of sprinkles that look a bit like clots; the Booger-Pop is sour apple and appears to have some crunchy bits swirled in; and the Barf-Pop is root beer-flavored with nonpareil sprinkles scattered throughout.

We can see the novelty in this, especially once the initial "ew" gives way to "yum." These candies are strangely named, but appropriate enough for spooky season. Plus, once the label comes off, they're pretty much regular lollipops (thank goodness). Melville Candy does dabble in a bit more savory flavors with its lollipops that come in varieties like Mexican street corn, spicy chili, and craft beer, so if you're hoping for a change from the norm, consider giving those a try.